I choose. To-morrow we'll make Elise do yours up and see how you look."

"But I'm only fourteen," protested Patty, "and I don't want to be grown up
for years yet. Your hair looks lovely, but I like you better with it down,
as it was this afternoon."

"Don't say so before mamma, or shell insist on my wearing it so."

When the girls entered the drawing-room, Mrs. St. Clair smiled amiably at
her pretty niece, and bade her come to her side.

"My dear," she said, "you are a pretty little girl, and a sweet one, I've
no doubt, but your name I do not like at all. I can't abide nicknames, so
I'm going to call you by your full name. What is it, Martha?"

"Martha!" exclaimed Patty in surprise, "oh, no, Aunt Isabel, I was named
for my great-grandmother. My name is Patricia."

"Oh, how lovely," cried Aunt Isabel, kissing her niece in the exuberance of
her delight. "We will all call you Patricia. It is a beautiful name and
suits you extremely well. You must stand very straight, and acquire
dignified manners in order to live up to it."

This made merry Patty laugh, but she offered no objection to her aunt's
decision, and promised to sign her name Patricia whenever she wrote it, and
to make no further use of the despised nickname while staying at Villa
Rosa. Ethelyn was pleased too, at the change.

"Oh," she said, "now your name is as pretty as mine and Florelle's, and we
have the prettiest names in Elmbridge. Here comes Reginald, you haven't